Tamil ad is winner at AIR Awards

BY LINCOLN YAP

KUALA LUMPUR: The inaugural AIR Awards show held on Friday evening broke new ground on two counts: firstly, it was the first creative awards show dedicated to radio advertising, and secondly, the top winner – unusual for local advertising awards competitions – was an ad in Tamil. 

Titled Traditions, the Tamil commercial created for Astro by ad agency Young & Rubicam (Y&R) won the Best of the Best award (Tamil language category) and one gold each in the pro bono (public service) and copywriting in Tamil categories. 

There were more than 20 award categories but only four golds were awarded during the maiden AIR Awards organised by the Malaysian Association of Commercial Radio Operators (Macro). Even the fourth gold was for a Tamil ad, created by Media Merge Holdings for Surimass, for best use of sound and sound effects. 

This was surprising for a Malaysian advertising awards show as the big winners tend to be ads done in English or Bahasa Malaysia. 

Y&R group creative head Edward Ong told Sunday Star that the Traditions ad was actually originally conceptualised in English for Astro in relation to the Tamil New Year. “We found many people liked it so we did it in Tamil. We translated it and recorded it in Tamil and it ran a lot on radio, getting some very good feedback,” he said. 

Ong, who worked on the Tamil version with a creative director at Astro, Veno Chornalingam, said the win was more significant by virtue of it being in Tamil, broadcast over radio and was heard by many people, as evident by the flow of telephone calls from people who were touched by the story related in the ad. 

In the ad, a mother is telling her daughter the traditions associated with the Tamil New Year and why it is significant to the community. The mother tells of how “Appa” used to get up early in the morning to pray and light candles and lamps in celebration of the day, and so on. 

Ong said many listeners called in to say they could visualise the scene, which brought back feelings of nostalgia and fond memories.  

Besides Y&R, which won three golds and a merit, ad agency McCann-Erickson was the other big winner, collecting seven bronze awards, a silver and 18 merit awards. The Young Creative Award went to Vyvian Liang Chian Ying, a Chinese writer with McCann-Erickson. 

The pro bono category was sponsored by Star Publications (M) Bhd.